Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, a control method for the image processing apparatus, a printing system, a control method for the printing system, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is known an image processing system in which a DFE (digital front end controller), which is an image processing apparatus, and a host computer, which is an information processing apparatus, are connected together via a network, and a printing apparatus is connected to the DFE (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2015-1818). The DFE receives a print job from the host computer. The print job includes PDL (page description language) data which is print data, and the DFE subjects the PDL data to a RIP (raster image processor) process to generate BMP (bitmap image data). The DFE transfers the generated BMP to the printing apparatus, which in turn subjects the transferred BMP to a compression process and temporarily stores it in, for example, a RAM which the printing apparatus has. After that, the printing apparatus stores the BMP, which has been stored in the RAM, in an HDD which the printing apparatus has. The BMP stored in the HDD is printed when, for example, a user instructs the DFE or the printing apparatus to perform printing of the BMP stored in the HDD.
Lately, there is known a printing apparatus which prints BMP, which is stored in an HDD, at high speed (hereafter referred to as “the high-speed printing apparatus”). A DFE is usually able to generate multiple pieces of BMP within a short time period and transfer them to the high-speed printing apparatus, and upon receiving multiple pieces of BMP within a short time period, the high-speed printing apparatus successively prints the received multiple pieces of BMP.
However, when a large amount of BMP is transferred from the DFE to the high-speed printing apparatus, it may take long to store the transferred large amount of BMP in the HDD. Namely, the writing speed at which the BMP is stored in the HDD may be lower than the printing speed at which the BMP is printed, and as a result, the high-speed printing apparatus may stand by until BMP planned to be printed is stored in the HDD. This presents a problem because a printing process takes long.
Moreover, there may be a case where the capacity of a RAM which the high-speed printing apparatus has is small, and hence BMP that has been transferred from the DFE and subjected to a compression process cannot be stored in the RAM. In this case, the high-speed printing apparatus requests the DFE to transfer the BMP again, subjects the BMP transferred again to another compression process, and stores it in the RAM. This presents a problem because it takes long for the high-speed printing apparatus to compress BMP transferred from the DFE and store the compressed BMP in the RAM, and as a result, a printing process takes long.